Frans de Waal: Moral Behavior in Animals
~ ~ The Moral Instinct ~ ~
We are endowed with a moral faculty that delivers judgments of right and
wrong based on unconsciously operative and inaccessible principles of
action. The theory posits a universal moral grammar, built into the brains
of all humans. The grammar is a set of principles that
operate on
the basis of the causes and consequences of action. Thus, in the same way
that we are endowed with a language faculty that consists of a universal
toolkit for building possible languages, we are also endowed with a moral
faculty that consists of a universal toolkit for building possible moral
systems...
Moral Minds: The Nature of Right and Wrong - Marc Hauser
https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Minds-Nature-Right-Wrong/dp/006078072X/
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/11/marc-hauser-mor.html
~ ~ The Six Moral Modules ~ ~
According to Johnathan Haidt, understanding political and religious beliefs
begins with an understanding of the human moral sense as it was laid down by
evolution over the past several million years.
For Haidt, the moral sense actually consists of (at least) six moral modules, each of which evolved to answer a specific challenge that our ancestors faced in the environment in which our species evolved.
Briefly, the Six Moral Modules are;
(1) The Care/Harm Module
(2) The Fairness/Cheating Module
(3) The Loyalty/Betrayal Module
(4) The Authority/Subversion Module
(5) The Liberty/Oppression Module
(6) The Sanctity Module.
While all of us come prewired with the six moral modules, each of them stands to be either amplified or quieted as well as somewhat modified by a host of internal and external factors.
(1) The Care/Harm Module - begins with a desire to nurture and raise our children. ...this module is flexible enough that it can extend to a wider or narrower range of creatures in different times and places, and across different individuals...
(2) The Fairness/Cheating Module - consists of an inclination to behave kindly towards strangers (or at least give them the benefit of the doubt), and then respond to them in kind to how they respond to us. ...The fairness module is thought to have evolved to address the adaptive challenge of taking advantage of mutual cooperation, which benefits all parties involved (and requires playing nice with others), without being taken advantage of in the process (which requires that we get angry with, and punish cheaters).
(3) The Loyalty/Betrayal Module - the predisposition to develop affection for those who display loyalty to the groups of which we are a part, and hatred for those who betray these groups: “the love of loyal teammates is matched by a corresponding hatred of traitors, who are usually considered to be far worse than enemies”. The loyalty module evolved, it appears, to meet “the adaptive challenge of forming cohesive coalitions”, which coalitions proved to be beneficial in our evolutionary past when inter-group conflict was a natural part of life.
(4) The Authority/Subversion Module - is a moral foundation that has been designed to allow us to negotiate social hierarchies, which themselves have played a prominent role in our evolutionary history. ..the ancient roots of human hierarchies are not strictly about dominance and submission; rather “people who relate to each other in this way have mutual expectations that are more like those of a parent and child than those of a dictator and fearful underlings” ...“these modules work together to help individuals meet the adaptive challenge of forging beneficial relationships within hierarchies”.
(5) The Liberty/Oppression Module - has to do with social hierarchies wherein the authority figure has come to be deemed illegitimate by his subordinates. We all recognize some kinds of authority as legitimate in some contexts, but are also wary of those who claim to be leaders unless they have first earned our trust. We’re vigilant for signs that they’ve crossed the line into self-aggrandizement and tyranny. As you will recognize, the liberty module is very much in a state of tension with the authority module, but both work together to create a kind of fragile balance in our psyches between equality and hierarchy.
(6) The Sanctity Module - consists in the predisposition to identify certain objects, places, principles, acts and people as low, base or profane, and certain other objects, places, principles, acts and people as pure, noble or sacred. ... This emotion initially evolved to help guard our omnivorous species against potentially harmful food: ...Disgust is part of the ‘behavioral immune system’—a set of cognitive modules that are triggered by signs of infection or disease in other people and that make you want to get away from those people”...
Jonathan Haidt - https://jonathanhaidt.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion/dp/0307455777
https://evokit-notes.tumblr.com/post/81352511905/the-foundations-of-morality
Where Does Morality Come From | Moral Foundations Theory | Jonathan Haidt
~ ~ Seven Fundamental Social Goals ~ ~
Solving Modern Problems With a Stone-Age Brain:
Human Evolution and the Seven Fundamental Motives (APA LifeTools Series)
by Dr. Douglas T. Kenrick PhD (Author), David E.
Lundberg-Kenrick BFA (Author)
Over millennia, we humans have evolved a set of motivational systems to help us solve the seven basic problems of existence: surviving, protecting ourselves from dangerous others, forming friendships, winning respect, attracting mates, hanging onto mates, and caring for our families.
We seek the same goals in the 21st century. However, the saber-tooth tigers and rival tribes that once threatened us have been replaced by marketers peddling sugar-laden foods, pundits fanning the culture war flames, and payday loan companies scamming those who can least afford it.
Through a series of engaging narratives and science-based life tips, this book helps us see past our electronics and lattes and gain helpful insights into achieving the life we want.
Human Evolution and the Seven Fundamental Motives (APA LifeTools Series) by Dr. Douglas T. Kenrick PhD (Author), David E. Lundberg-Kenrick BFA (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Solving-Modern-Problems-Stone-Age-Brain/dp/1433834782
~ ~ ~
The Rational Animal: How Evolution Made Us Smarter Than We Think
-
by Douglas T. Kenrick (Author), Vladas Griskevicius.
From an evolutionary perspective, human relationships are shaped by multiple cognitive and affective mechanisms designed to solve long-recurring problems and opportunities faced by our ancestors:
1 - Self-Protection;
2 - Disease Avoidance;
3 - Affiliation;
4 - Status;
5 - Mate Acquisition;
6 - Mate Retention, and
7 - Kin Care
Different relationships -- romantic, parental, friendship, acquaintanceship --
differ in the threats and opportunities they afford. Because of this, the
psychologies governing how people feel and think about different
relationships differ profoundly as well:
The psychology governing the feelings and thoughts people have about romantic partners is qualitatively different from the psychology governing feelings and thoughts about children, which is qualitatively different from the psychologies governing feelings and thoughts about friends, coworkers, and strangers...https://www.amazon.com/The-Rational-Animal-Evolution-Smarter/dp/0465032427
We don’t just have one ‘self’ making decisions. Instead, our minds contain a number of different ‘sub-selves’ each with different goals. Moreover, our sub-selves are competing for our attention, depending on the current context and the most important current goal. This is a profoundly disruptive and unnerving conclusion: we don’t have a unique self.
But how and when do these different sub-selves work? The authors make a clear analogy with a computer. The brain receives input from the outside world through the senses, just as a computer receives a command by pressing a key. The output from the computer depends on the particular button that is pressed.
Computers have different software programs to solve different problems, like calculation, writing or playing a game. In the same way, the brain has different programs to solve different social problems, most of which date back to long before man lived in the modern urban environment. In the same way that inputs shape outputs, the human brain will process information differently depending on which sub-self is running the show. That is, the brain has different programs for achieving different evolutionary goals.
Economic Subselves: Fundamental Motives and Deep
Rationality - Douglas T. Kenrick, Yexin Jessica Li,
Andrew E. White, & Steven L. Neuberg
The Rational Animal: How Evolution Made Us Smarter Than We Think
- by Douglas T. Kenrick (Author), Vladas Griskevicius.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Rational-Animal-Evolution-Smarter/
Moral Tribes - Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them
There are different ways for groups to be cooperative, and they can work fine separately, but what happens when you have different groups that come together?
Imagine the following scenario: You have two different tribes, your
collectivist tribe over here—where everything's in common, and your
individualist tribe over there. Imagine these tribes not only have
different ways of cooperating, but they rally around different gods,
different leaders, different holy texts that tell them how they should
live—that you're not allowed to sing on Wednesdays in this group, and in
this group over here, women are
allowed to be herders, but in this
group
over there, they're not; different ways of life; different
ways of organizing society. Imagine these societies existing separately,
separated by a forest that burns down. The rains come, and then suddenly
you have a nice lovely pasture, and both tribes move in.
Now the question is: How are they going to do this? We have different tribes that are cooperative in different ways. Are they going to be individualistic? Are they going to be collectivists? Are they going to pray to this god? Are they going to pray to that god? Are they going to be allowed to have assault weapons or not allowed to have assault weapons? That's the fundamental problem of the modern world—that basic morality solves the tragedy of the commons, but it doesn't solve what I call the "tragedy of common sense morality." Each moral tribe has its own sense of what's right or wrong—a sense of how people ought to get along with each other and treat each other—but the common senses of the different tribes are different. That's the fundamental and moral problem...
https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Tribes-Emotion-Reason-Between/dp/0143126059/
Moral Tribes - Joshua Greene
https://www.joshua-greene.net/
http://edge.org/conversation/deep-pragmatism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Foundations_Theory
~~ Political Orientations Theory ~~
The Republican Brain - Chris Mooney
Science of Political Orientation - Avi Tuschman
Jonathan Haidt Explains Our Contentious Culture
Do Most People Fit in Liberal and Conservative Boxes?
The
public can’t be described by just two political labels.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/...the-hidden-agenda-the-political-mind/
General Political Orientations Model - P Foundations Theory
to suggest a possible link between brain
structure and psychological
mechanisms that mediate
political attitudes."
In an interview with LiveScience, Ryota Kanai said, "It's very unlikely that actual political orientation is directly encoded in these brain regions", and that, "more work is needed to determine how these brain structures mediate the formation of political attitude."
Recent research points at substantial differences in the cognitive styles of liberals and conservatives on psychological measures. For example;
Conservatives respond to threatening situations with more aggression than do liberals. Similarly,
- Conservatives are more sensitive to threatening facial expressions.
- Jost and colleagues posed that political orientation is associated with psychological processes for managing fear and uncertainty
A 2011 study by cognitive neuroscientist Ryota Kanai's group at
University College London published in Current Biology, found a
correlation between differences in political views and differences
in brain structures in a convenience sample of students from
University College London. The researchers performed MRI
scans on
the brains of 90 volunteer students who had indicated their
political orientation on a five-point scale ranging from "very
liberal"
to "very conservative";
Students who reported more "conservative" political views tended to have larger amygdalae, a structure in the temporal lobes that performs a primary role in the processing and memory of emotions.
In addition, they found clusters in which gray matter volume was significantly associated with conservativism in the left insula and the right entorhinal cortex. There is evidence that conservatives are more sensitive to disgust and the insula is involved in the feeling of disgust.
On the other hand, more 'liberal' students tended to have a larger volume of grey matter in the anterior cingulate cortex, a structure of the brain associated with monitoring uncertainty and handling conflicting information. It is consistent with previous research suggesting that individuals with a larger ACC have a higher capacity to tolerate uncertainty and conflicts, allowing them to accept more liberal views.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientation
The Moral Sense Tradition
A putatively innate human faculty for distinguishing right from wrong. In the moral intuitionism of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, the moral sense motivates proper conduct by enabling us to perceive the distinctive pleasure of moral rectitude.
The Slave of the Passions: There is a familiar image, with a long tradition among philosophers and the vulgar alike, of the combat of reason and the passions.
http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/m9.htm#mors
http://www.kalderon.demon.co.uk/Hume3.html
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9311/meilaender.html
It does not follow that all actions are of equal value. On Hume's view, the judgments and recommendations of traditional morality arise not from reason, but from a moral sense. As a straightforward matter of fact (discoverable by experience), virtue is always accompanied by a feeling of pleasure, and vice by a feeling of pain. Thus, we praise an instance of virtuous action precisely because it arouses in us a pleasant feeling, and we avoid committing a vicious action because we anticipate that doing so would produce pain. Our feelings provide a natural guide for moral conduct.
http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/4v.htm
two distinct players:
an external thing, such as an apple, and a spectator who perceives a quality in that thing, such as the colour red. In the case of moral perception, the two distinct players are the agent who performs an action, and the spectator who perceives the virtuous conduct within the agent.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/humemora.htm
Eighteenth-century thinkers did not have evolutionary theory, nor did they have a very sophisticated theory of language, yet they developed a very cogent theory of the sentimental anchor of all moral action and judgment.
From Biology to Social Experience to Morality: Naturalization of Morality
http://polanyisociety.org/...TAD30-3-pg31-39-pdf.pdf
These feelings give one an affection for virtuewhat Shaftesbury called a moral sensewhich creates a natural harmony between virtue and self-interest. Shaftesbury was, of course, realistic enough to acknowledge that there are also contrary desires and that not all people are virtuous all of the time. Virtue could, however, be recommended becauseand here Shaftesbury drew upon a theme of Greek ethicsthe pleasures of virtue are superior to the pleasures of vice.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-252538/ethics
Hume inherits from his predecessors several controversies about ethics and political philosophy.
One is a question of moral epistemology: how do human beings become aware of, or acquire knowledge or belief about, moral good and evil, right and wrong, duty and obligation? Ethical theorists and theologians of the day held, variously, that moral good and evil are discovered:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/
against the intuitionists, that moral
judgment cannot be based on
reason and therefore must be a
matter of whether an action is amiable
or disagreeable to one's moral sense.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-252540/ethics
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evolution/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality
